Towns

Squibnocket Pond

A two-year effort by a group of Chilmark landowners to use herbicides to combat phragmites in Squibnocket Pond came to an end this week. The Hon. Gordon H. Piper on Monday vacated his own ruling from last January that had found a Chilmark bylaw banning herbicides on the pond was not valid.

For much of the work week, Emily Bramhall inhabits a world devoted
to the creature comforts of the indoor world - stuffed pillows,
luxurious bedsheets and cozy handknit sweaters sold at her store on Main
street Vineyard Haven.

It was all the more shocking then to see Ms. Bramhall wearing a
crash helmet and scrunched into the wooden cockpit of a vessel capable
of reaching 60 miles per hour across the ice of a frozen pond.